Faces

I didn't have a chance to post yesterday, but I did draw a face - it's my favorite one yet.



And here is the one I did today. I'm still struggling a bit with the mouths. Yesterday's is a bit better to me. But this is really good practice - and I'm proud that I've drawn at least one face every day. It's been really fun to see what the other students are doing too.



Terri created a Flickr group for us to post our progress, so if you're interested, you can see more faces here. There aren't a lot of faces there yet, but I'm sure we'll all be adding to the group over the next few weeks.

2 More Faces

Since I signed up for the Faces on Fabric class, I've decided to draw at least one face every day, at least until the next lesson comes out next Monday. So far, I've drawn more than one face each day; here are the two I drew today. Since they will be turned into fabric, that's why the hair on the second one looks the way it does - each section will be a separate piece of fabric. I'm thinking about taking my watercolor pencils to these.

Faces

I drew 2 more faces today. Practice, practice, practice!

Faces on Fabric

OK, these aren't on fabric, but that's the name of the class I'm taking from Terri Stegmiller that started yesterday (I know, I'm addicted to online classes). We're starting out by sketching faces on paper - we'll work up to getting them onto fabric in the next few lessons. I've never really drawn faces before, so I don't think these are too bad. I know I need LOTS of practice, but hey - these are my first 3 faces!! They look weird because I drew them with a 3H pencil (very light line) in my Moleskine sketchbook, which has cream colored pages, meaning there wasn't enough contrast to see them very well in the scan. I desaturated them in Photoshop so that you could see them at all.

More Visual Journalism

I've done some more pages in my visual journal. This first one is the first page in my journal - I had left it blank until I decided what I wanted to do, since it's the first page you see when you open the journal. A friend had given me a set of napkins with these cats on them, and I only had one left, so I decided the best use of them would be to glue them into my journal. I wasn't sure what the best way to glue them in would be, since after I separated the layers, the paper was very thin. First I ran it through my Xyron, but that didn't work well at all; some of the paper stuck to itself. I managed to get the top three cats glued in with just a bit of wrinkling. Then I remembered seeing Pam Carriker put Golden's gel medium directly on the page instead of on the paper that was being glued in while watching her class video, so I decided to try that. It worked much better and I was able to glue rest of the cats and the fishbone border in that way. I really like the way the paper of the napkin almost disappears; I'll be using more napkins and tissue paper in the future. I stamped the pawprints, and did the lettering and hearts by hand. Then I added some shading and I think it's done.



I've shown the next page before, but I've added some outlines to the title and some shading.



I've shown this page before too, but I've added some more doodling and shading to it.



And this last page is new. I've mentioned before that I attend the Tulsa Ballet; they performed Cinderella last Sunday.



I highly recommend this course!

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

This is book 3 in a series, and it is just as witty as the first two. It helps to have an appreciation of the English language and/or literature. The story is quite unusual - set in an alternate England in the 1980's where the prevailing culture is based on literature. Thursday was a Special Operative in literary detection. In this volume, she takes refuge in an unpublished book by the name of Caversham Heights in the Well of Lost Plots. She must battle with Aornis Hades, little sister of the master criminal Acheron Hades, whom Thursday vanquished in The Eyre Affair. Aornis is a mnemonomorph, meaning that she has been changing Thursday's memories. I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Cyber Fyber Random Trade

These are the ATCs I received from the Cyber Fyber Random Trade. The one on the left came all the way from Annica in Sweden, the middle one is from Sarah in South Carolina, and the one on the right is from Barb in Florida. They're all beautiful - thanks ladies!

Valentine ATCs

Terri Stegmiller posted some ATC's for trade on her blog, and I really liked them, so I told her I wanted to trade for one. This meant I had to make one for her, of course. So while I was making one, I made eight. I made them with my embellisher - I love that machine! I haven't used it in awhile, so it was a great excuse to use it again. Here is the one I'm sending to Terri:



I've saved out three for some friends:



And here are the other four:



If anyone would like to trade for one of the last four, please leave me a comment with a way to contact you. I'd love to trade!

New Journal Page

I worked on a new page in my journal yesterday - it's my favorite one so far.

Visual Journalism 101

I've added a quote about nature to the page I posted a few days ago.



And I've started on another page:



I'm having a lot of fun with this!

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

I finished this book Monday night - it is my first read for the WWII Reading Challenge. It "tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort by Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II." (quoted from the back cover) It was very well-written and followed the stories of several different characters. While this book and The Madonnas of Leningrad were very different stories, I was struck at the end by the similarity between Claudette (in this book) and Marina (in Madonnas) - how neither would talk about their experiences during the war and how their children didn't feel like they knew them - and even thought they were cold. I rate this book 4 out of 5.